Dispatch from La mer Méditerranée: Collioure Waking Up

I was watching the daylight start to creep up on Collioure when the birds in the tree outside our window decided it was time for them to be heading down to the corner diner for birdseed. I slide out of bed so as not to wake the slumbering Dolly-girl, pulled on some clothes, and headed out to watch Collioure wake up.







The sun was coming up over Italy over there to the east somewhere, but the light in the town was the kind that Dolly-girl is always saying this writer or that poet or some other kind of artiste was talking about. All I know was that it’s the sort of light that makes you glad that when the birds start to chirp, you get up instead of rolling over, putting a pillow over your ears, and tell those little birdies where you wish they’d stick their beaks, if you follow.

I walked around, pointing the Kodak this way and that. Seemed too quiet to have to worry about Trouble, if he did follow me onto the Clipper, over here to Over There, and then all around Paree, south to St. Flour and the Bates Motel, and then over here to the coast. Well, I must have been wrong ‘cause just when things seemed quiet, other than the street cleaners, a whole platoon, or whatever the Frenchies call them, of commandos went running by, headed for the water. They proceeded to do all sorts of training—swimming, jumping, running, and so on.

By the time I got back to the room to pick up some more film, Dolly-girl was up and beautified, as she calls it. We headed out on shank’s mare, although there isn’t far to ride here. Being that it was Wednesday morning, the Wednesday morning market was rolling. If you can eat it,

they sell it. Not much different from what goes on in Stumptown when you get to the bottom of the matter, although I’m in Collioure to tell you that they sell and eat ahell of a lot more sausage here than back home. Too bad about that War on LARD! ‘cause it sure would be fun to gnaw on one of them…

There was a good jazz combo too.

It wasn't lunch time, but it was time to stop and have some liquids--you know, what with all the heat and sun and so on. So we settled our carcasses in at one of the beach front cafes. Dolly-girl started trying to find a pleasing drink by trial and error. Me, I figured why take a chance on error and two beers into the experiment, it was Jack, 2, Dolly-girl nothing, unless you count the beer-o-mine that she drank while rejecting various beach-side drinks.

After that it was time for lunch. The bar in our hotel turned out to be just the place we were hoping for. There were a couple groups of older guys (read my age, but retired) were playing cards. Hmmm, maybe there's a message here for me. Next, nap time. Maybe I'll write something about the night-time feedbag if I get around to it...